It’s summer. The days are longer, the sun is shining, the mood is playful. Maybe it’s a good time for recreation. But why recreation? Or, as an alternative, related consideration, why re-creation?

Recreation: amusement, sport, relaxation, play, diversion, enjoyment.

Re-creation: recovery, renovation, revival, renewal, regeneration, rebirth.

Both concepts offer irresistible invitation to re-double our commitment to happy, renewing plans.

Play and recreation / re-creation are promising ways to discover and build new dimensions of ourselves. Some years ago, my husband and I lived for four years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I arrived in that fabulous, foreign place without speaking a word of Spanish. On the first morning of our arrival, I looked apprehensively out of our third-story window at the chic Argentines on the sidewalks below and I wondered how I would fill my days in a way that would include purpose and pleasure.Thanks to a local woman who came to our apartment weekly to offer Spanish instruction, I learned about and eagerly began affiliating with a group of English-speaking ex-patriot women who met together weekly. I began attending those weekly meetings immediately. I hungrily signed all the clipboards they circulated to be notified of every variety of play they offered. Lunch dates, walking groups, movie nights, tennis matches, knitting club. I did it all, whether I liked or had a propensity for the activity or not. The play was my way forward. The easy access of the assorted play united and bound us together. In the happy company of those international women, I found friendship, fun, and both recreation and re-creation. I was enlivened and reborn. Play did that.

Play is a joyful way to find community and to build friendships. Too often, people tend to become isolated as they grow older and no longer have formal employment or children at home. Determined not to let that be their fate, the women in my neighborhood formed a robust, come-one-come-all pickleball group. Three times a week, one of the women takes charge of sending a text to all the others noting the where and when of the following morning’s pickleball game. After sending their thumbs up or thumbs down to be sure there will be at least four players, the morning’s athletes assemble at the appointed hour to begin the play.And “play” it is. While everyone prefers not to fault on their serves or hit the ball into the net, the focus is clearly on the fun and the friendship. The girlfriends rotate to guarantee that everyone plays with everyone, generally assuring that everyone wins some and loses some. The point tally becomes quite incidental. The success comes from the playfulness of it all. Pickleball in the mornings with assorted friends tends to be more silliness than seriousness.
Most of the players are familiar enough with the rules and regulations, but all are inclined and authorized to take liberal liberties with those conventions. That authority increases the whimsey of the game. Mutually agreed-upon fun is the goal. Often a newcomer or a player simply having a bad day is encouraged to take unlimited serves. The point is the play and the playfulness. All those PB players repeatedly experience diversion and enjoyment, as well as renewal: both recreation and re-creation.

Play is a happy ingredient in joyful marriages. Years ago, I staged a treasure hunt for my husband through a local mall. On his birthday, he found a poetic note I had left on his car windshield. The couplet sent him to a favorite store in that mall where he picked up a small gift and the next clue from the clerk. That note sent him to another store with the same result, and then another, until he finally ended up at a restaurant where I awaited him for the birthday dinner date. My husband is unaccustomed to unscripted public attention like that, but he was uncharacteristically delighted by the pure, unexpected silly fun of it all. We relived and laughed about that nutty surprise again and again. For him, it served as playful recreation, and for us both, it sparked re-creation of the affection we shared.In the last year, we started playing an on-line word game together joining our best linguistic efforts to score the win and celebrate our genius when the screen displays fireworks and tells us we are brilliant. Our on-line word game is a ritual we both look forward to. It’s sweet side-by-side play.
We find recreation and re-creation in sharing inside jokes and funny stories from the past. Sometimes my husband sends me a silly text, or I leave a sticky note with a smiley face and a heart on his rearview mirror. That’s play. We even make a game out of helping each other remember the names that have escaped our memories. Whoever thinks of the name first gets a proverbial point. (My husband may not agree, but I think I am ahead on the point tally.) When you’re an adult, play may not always feel natural, but it is worth the departure from what feels natural to achieve the relief of stress and the break from mundanity that it inevitably provides.

So, it’s summer. Jump in a pool. Kick a ball. Tackle a crossword puzzle. Throw a Frisbie. Join a team. Blow bubbles. Play a game. Go bowling. Tell a joke. As you do, you will make a friend, refresh a romance, reduce your stress, share a smile, and rediscover a chuckle. You’ll love the recreation and the re-creation. There is happy power in play.